patrick.net

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Housing-Bubble-House-Prices/dp/0615226930/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301944813&sr=8-2

"Sell Now!" by John Talbott was excellent.

Another one by Talbott:

"The Coming Crash in the Housing Market"

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Crash-Housing-Market-Investment/dp/007142220X

I read that book back in 2004. This book firmly convinced me that the whole thing would eventually blow up. It's kind of amazing this guy didn't get more credit.

Very good book Mark.. I 2nd that one.
Also see Robert shillers Irrational Exhuberance 2nd edition.

I also like the classic "The great crash of 1929" by John K. Galbraith.

Some of the stuff in the book is itself timeless and/or illustrates brightly the timelessness of financial scams.

For example, did you all know that the phrase "permanently high plateau" was coined on Oct 21 1929?

"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
--Prof. Irving Fisher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher

Quiz: Who was it that used nearly the same phrase this time around (2006)?

The best book I read was "Devil Take The Hindmost: A History Of Financial Speculation" by Edward Chancellor.

I was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time - when this book was on the 'new books' shelf in the library, and read it when the the tech bubble was at it's height(1999). When the tech mania was at its height, it gave me hope to hold on to my "bubble" views. I was kind of getting lonely out there.

A fun Galbraith quote:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."